Autophagy is a system in which cells resupply intracellular nutrients by enclosing, in an environment that is deficient in intracellular nutrients, unnecessary proteins, aged small organs, and the like in membrane vacuoles composed of a lipid bilayer and then merging the same into lysosomes, thereby inducing the lysis of internal materials enclosed therein, and the Autophagy plays an important role in the maintenance of intracellular homeostasis. It is found that the autophagy plays an important role in controlling various human physiological and pathological states, such as cell growth, differentiation, metabolism, cancer, brain diseases, and immunity, and thus, the autophagy receives a lot of interest from the world. Autophagy may be subdivided into macroautophagy, microautophagy, and chaperone mediated autophagy (CMA) depending on the operation mechanism and function, and these three types of Autophagy are differently induced in individual forms while coexisting in cells. For example, autophagy occurs in even normal cell conditions, but macroautophagy is promptly induced in nutrient-deficient conditions. When stress is maintained for 6-8 h, macroautophagy is gradually decreased, and CAM induction occurs within 12-24 h. Autophagy is variously subdivided depending on the type of cargo: mitophagy for protecting cell damage by selectively removing damaged mitochondria, and ribophagy, reticulphagy, and pexophagy depending on the degradation of ribosomes, endoplasmic reticulum, and peroxisomes. In addition, macrolipophagy has recently been introduced, which is also involved in the direct degradation of intracellular lipid droplets generated by fatty acids. Although the functions of autophagy are found in various disease models and there is much interest therein, the accurate mechanisms thereof and the functions of involved molecules have not been well known so far.
As for patents relating to Beclin 1 involved in the autophagy mechanism, EP 2383294 discloses a technique of treating or diagnosing neurodegenerative diseases using antibodies specifically binding to Thr119 phosphorylated Beclin 1; U.S. Pat. No. 6,432,914 discloses a technique of treating cancer using Beclin 1 itself as a protein drug; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,858,669 discloses a technique of diagnosing cancer using Beclin 1 mutation.
Throughout the entire specification, many papers and patent documents are referenced and their citations are represented. The disclosure of the cited papers and patent documents are entirely incorporated by reference into the present specification, and the level of the technical field within which the present invention falls and the details of the present invention are explained more clearly.